Ah, the Mario series/franchise. It's pretty much the one thing you can
count on to not only give you an entertaining game, but innovative game
designs as well. In fact, there has been only a couple of misfires in
the plumber's 20+ history, and it really wasn't Nintendo's fault (Mario
Is Missing is one of them). With the release of each new Nintendo
system, there has always been a Mario game available at or around
launch, and usually has brought over a whole new way we think about
games. But for some reason, we had to wait almost one year before we
got an actual Mario game on the Gamecube. Was it worth the wait? Does
it bring something new? Does it improve on existing designs? Read on.

Super Mario Sunshine may be one of the weaker offerings in the Mario
series, simply because the idea just isn't as strong or compelling as
past efforts. I will admit that meeting Peach for cake in Mario 64 was
about as ridiculous as you can get in terms of story, but it involves
another kidnapping. Here, you're on vacation to a place never mentioned
before in the entire history of the series, Delfino Island, and your
biggest problem is cleaning up the crap that was left behind from
someone who looks like you. In a way, the whole plot is reverse of
Sega's Jet Grind Radio. Instead of marking your territory, you clean up
a mess you haven't even made. While the storyline and plot is about as
thin as a Doritio, the game play elements are very much welcome and
entertaining, as they always have been.

Mario is now equipped with a spray cannon called FLUDD, which is
innovative at first, but is something that is guaranteed never to make
a return in the next Mario game. You basically use this thing to clean
up the grafitti and to reach places normal jumping can not get you to.
Aside from this gimmick, you have the same moves as you did in Mario
64. The double jump, the sideways jump and the pound. It's all there.
These come together for some interesting game play elements, but also
manage to become tedious as well. Of course, you can blame the camera
more for that. For some reason, SMS does not have a good camera. Why is
it Zelda can provide great camera angles, but the Mario games can't?
While the camera is not nearly as distracting or atrocious as Sonic
Adventure 2 Battle's, it can be at fault for missed jumps. The overall
control scheme is fairly tight and easy to grasp, but when the world
you move around in is not nearly as dynamic as the controls,
frustration can occur. Especially in the special levels.

Speaking of which, along with the seven or so stages you play in, which
range from different shorelines, to a haunted hotel and an amusement
park, you have these special stages that are more challenging and
demanding than the actual game itself. You are placed into these stages
that are set up almost like a classic 2-D Mario stage, except there are
some 3-D elements. The first few I came across were not that tough, but
some of the later ones are brutal. The way the special stages are
designed makes me wish that this could have been a separate game
itself. I would like to see a Mario game go back to it's 2-D design
roots, and mix 3-D elements within that. It could be fun, who knows.

The graphics of SMS are not terribly overwhelming. The textures on land
are pretty bright, and kind of blurry and lacking of detail. Perhaps
this would have been a better game to use the cel-shading technique on.
The water, on the other hand, looks great. It has the specular effects
that should have been implemented in Wave Race Blue Storm. The Mario
character model is modeled very well, and has very smooth animations.
There are also a lot of reflection effects as well as lighting effects
to be seen, as well as an overuse of heat distortion. Also, SMS has a
great draw-distance. The frame rate stays constant most of the time,
where the only real drop-off that occurred was when I went near the
three tilting mirrors, and I can imagine it takes some power to get
those reflections to work as well as they do.

The sound consists of island music and Mario sound-bites. I never liked
the way Mario sounded after Mario 64. I remember the old Super Mario
Bros. cartoons back in the late 80's, and he sounded like he was from
Brooklyn. I'm not sure if I'm the only one bothered by this, but I just
can't stand Mario's squealing a lot of the time. The island music is
decent, but not really memorable. The remixed SMB theme works well for
the special stages, though.

Many have come down hard on this game simply because it never really
advanced passed Mario 64. In a way, they are right. But the game play
design is still so much better than other games I have played. It still
managed to be addictive, frustrating and fun, despite the poorly
conceived storyline. SMS is pretty much Mario not only taking a
vacation from his tireless duties, but kind of a vacation from his
series as well. We're just along for the ride.

.

.

Published
By :NINTENDO

Developed
By: NINTENDO

Year Published :
2002

Players :
1

ESRB Rating:
EVERYONE

OVERALL
SCORE9.0

VISUALS

8.8

AUDIO

8.8

GAMEPLAY

9.3

REPLAY
VALUE

8.5

INNOVATION

8.9

Perhaps not the best Mario outing ever, but it's still a great
platformer, and has a fairly solid design that may be copied at some
point in the future.

Sphinx

Grabbed By The Ghoulies

Vexx

Sonic Adventure 2 Battle

Super
Mario 64

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